


Horsed

by dioscureantwins



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome Molly Hooper, BAMF John, Gen, Greg is the ultimate cool, Mycroft To The Rescue, OD Sherlock, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Sherlock Holmes and Experiments, Sherlock and John are BFFs, Sherlock can be thoughtful if he wants to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 17:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7583416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dioscureantwins/pseuds/dioscureantwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So sorry to intrude but may I just check?” Mycroft enquired in a tone as silkily smooth as a pint of clotted cream. “Do you two really intend to go rushing after a murderer four days after Sherlock OD’d?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horsed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [believeinsh2012](https://archiveofourown.org/users/believeinsh2012/gifts).



> Author’s note: Written for the Marvellous Midyear Fic Exchange, for Sherlock Holmes. She asked for a casefic, horses, drugged Sherlock, a mind palace scene and torture amongst other things.  
> And yes, Matt and Ryan have walked straight out of dimity_blue’s excellent and highly recommended [Tall, Dark and Belstaff](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4784240l), which is full of the most snarky good fun and a totally wonderful read.
> 
> Beta and Britpick: the amazing besleybean.

Amelia Underwood paused and breathed deeply several times, pulling the crispy night air deep into her lungs with each inhale. The day had been cold for early June. The skies wrapped up in sodden grey flannel from which freak showers had splattered erratically, never lasting longer than a minute, but getting a woman who was on her knees weeding her garden thoroughly wet every single time. 

An unexpected, truly spectacular sunset, pale lemon burnished to a fiercely glowing persimmon that was submerged in a spreading pool the colour of Burgundy wine had enlivened the last half hour of the evening. Now the views of the firmament were unencumbered, stars winking as alluringly as a spray of diamonds on a swathe of midnight-blue velvet in an exclusive jeweller’s shop window, and Amelia had decided to treat herself and Mr Wiggles to the luxury of a nocturnal ramble. 

The moon had waxed to its journey’s culmination point, bathing the Berkshire Downs in a soft incandescent light. Across the vale the White Horse, forever galloping near the gentle crest of its hill, shone as bright as silverware polished to a shine by the ancient Gods themselves.

Around her the air pulsed with the sounds of small animals scurrying about on their business, reasoning the relative obscurity cloaked them against the watchful eye of their biggest enemy – man.

“Mr Wiggles,” Amelia called and the Welsh springer spaniel came tearing through a hedge, gambolling around her legs excitedly with his tongue dangling from his mouth.

“Down, luv’. Down,” she laughed, pointing at the ground. “Sit.”

Promptly, the dog sat, tail sweeping the grass with the enthusiasm of a treasure hunter who’s just noticed the needle on his metal detector rise a little higher.

“Good dog, Mr Wiggles,” Amelia praised and stooped to pat his head when all of a sudden Mr Wiggles shot up, hared around her and bolted up the path back to the summit they’d just traversed.

“Mr Wiggles, what the heck? Mr Wiggles,” she shouted after his swiftly disappearing form. But the spaniel, normally the very picture of obedience, paid her calls no heed and raced on, barking loudly.

“Darn’. What’s got into the blooming beast,” Amelia swore, pivoting to run after the dog – a pursuit that, given the fact she was a sixty-seven-year-old woman whose knees were shot with arthritis while Mr Wiggles was a healthy three-year-old spaniel – she didn’t particularly relish.

Still, she cut to a dogged chase up the hill, breath escaping from her mouth in fast little puffs. She was so immersed in the hunt she never heard the charge until the horses reared up in front of her eyes, Mr Wiggles dancing with death in the forest of horse legs, snapping and snarling as if his life depended on it. 

There were four of them, she noticed. The rider on the first horse lifted his arm and swung something that flashed as bright as silverware polished to a shine by the ancient Gods themselves.

 _What the…_ , flashed through her head.

***

“Good heavens,” Mrs Hudson greeted John, sprightly cheer radiating her face. ‘Whatever is the world coming to these days?”

They’d arrived at 221B’s front door simultaneously. Mrs Hudson was attired in her best purple dress and John was hauling the loot (four cartons of milk, a box of PG-tips, two cans of baked beans in tomato sauce, a carton of eggs and a deep pan pepperoni pizza) from a shopping spree at their local Tesco’s, which he’d undertaken after a long day as a last minute temp at a Shoreditch clinic.

Mrs Hudson’s day had obviously been more enjoyable than John’s. Her chirpy smile and lack of a coat despite the frigid temperature spoke volumes to such an extent that John didn’t need the dead give-away of the traces of flour at her cuffs. 

“Has Matt finally given Ryan his walking papers then?” John enquired. Apparently Mrs Turner’s married ones were facing a perfect storm and their happy little boat was about to flounder on the rocks. So far marriage counselling had done little to billow the ship’s sails in a search for gentler shores. The unhappy couple were the focal centre of their landlady’s motherly concern, which she then shared eagerly with Mrs Hudson and Mr Chatterjee, who, as the survivor of two divorces, was deemed the ultimate marriage expert. A few weeks earlier John had made the mistake of remarking that Matt had been looking decidedly down in the dumps lately and since then Mrs Hudson had updated him regarding the newest developments with almost daily bulletins.

“Oh, Lord, no,” she now tittered. “Six and a half dozen of red roses, one for each month they’ve been married. Isn’t it romantic? If Frank had ever bought me a dozen of roses I wouldn’t have put Sherlock onto him, not even after I found out about those other women. Mrs Turner was just mopping their hallway when Matt presented them. Ryan was over the moon. They couldn’t wait for her to leave and… well, you know.”

“Yeah,” John agreed, not that keen on imagining what Matt and Ryan got up to in the privacy of a Mrs Turner-less flat.

“No, but John, didn’t you hear?” Mrs Hudson changed tack. “That poor woman… Well, she didn’t suffer, I suppose, which is something to be grateful for. And that poor dog, sitting at her side for three days like that…”

“Sorry, but I haven’t the faintest what you’re going on about. Is it a case?” 

“Oh no, well, if the police were smart they’d bring in Sherlock. He’d catch that horrible murderer in the blink of an eye. Mr Chatterjee said so as well.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Mrs Hudson rattled on. “He dashed out of the door this morning shouting for a taxi to take him to Barts. I didn’t pay him much attention really. I was too busy applying my lipstick. The colour suits me, don’t you think?”

“Err, yes,” John replied. His landlady’s choice in lipstick colours didn’t exactly top his individual priority chart but he readily admitted in this his’ might differ from Mrs Hudson’s. “It looks wonderful on you. I’ll just go up and see if he’s returned.”

“Of course, dear,” Mrs Hudson sent him off with a jaunty little wave.

Upstairs, John discovered Sherlock in the middle of their living room engaged in casting the telly such a withering look that John was amazed the pretty BBC journalist on the screen kept talking into her microphone, rather than blanching and scuttling off sideways. 

“Will you look at that?” Sherlock invited unnecessarily, disgust dripping from his voice. John didn’t mind complying, but couldn’t find anything wrong with the woman who, as the camera zoomed out for an atmospheric shot of the surroundings showed a pair of legs every bit as artistic as those of one of the country’s famous white horses shown in the background.

“It seems the Thames Valley Police employ an even bigger idiot than Anderson,” Sherlock was grousing meanwhile, waving the remote with the horrified expression of a fairy godmother who’s just discovered her magic wand has gone on strike. “A tribe of Anglo-Saxons fleeing the Vikings would have done less damage to the scene. There’s…” 

What was there was likely to remain a mystery for a shudder passed through the consulting detective’s lanky frame. He reeled forwards and backwards a few times, teetered, and, with the sorrowful groan of a giant sequoia tree cut at its roots, crashed face forward into their rug. The remote, slipping from his suddenly powerless hand, bounced on the floor and switched off the television on its second landing.

“Sherlock!” Shopping forgotten, John covered the six feet between the door opening and his flatmate’s prone body in one leap. 

“Sherlock,” he repeated, shaking his friend by the shoulder and feeling for a pulse with anxious fingers. The steady thump of a sound heartbeat stalled the worst of John’s consternation and a loud gasp followed by an almost contented sniffle convinced him there was no need to call an ambulance. To all appearances Sherlock had fallen asleep mid-rant. As he had spent the better part of last night adding to Matt and Ryan’s marriage troubles by practicing Bartók’s first violin concerto after a harrowing five days’ chase of a child smuggling gang, the sudden urge had John’s full sympathy.

In the past John had discovered for such a skinny bloke Sherlock was surprisingly heavy so he didn’t even consider moving him, even though his flatmate couldn’t have chosen a more inconvenient spot for his afternoon nap if he’d tried. Instead he plucked Sherlock’s favourite cushion and the Afghan from the sofa and arranged those under and over the lightly snoring sleuth. Satisfied Sherlock was as comfortable as could be for someone sleeping fully clothed on a threadbare rug he put away the shopping, apart from the pizza, which he put in the microwave.

Fifteen minutes on John was in his chair with a can of beer, his dinner and the latest John le Carré novel, feet propped up on Sherlock’s calves, which turned out to be a handy footstool. He was fully prepared for a few hours of peace and quiet, when his phone rang. At first John ignored it but when, after having completed the cycle through voicemail, it started ringing again, John lifted his feet of their human bench and directed them to his jacket, which he’d hung on its hook earlier. Only now did he notice the Belstaff wasn’t hanging beside it but flung haphazardly on the coffee table. This was odd. For all that Sherlock treated their communal living space with the Bohemian disregard of a hippie squatting in derelict Ladbroke Grove premises during the summer of love; he was decidedly finicky about his personal possessions, his clothes in particular.

The mobile began its third cycle of ringing just as John plucked it from his pocket. On reading the caller’s name, blinking up at him from the display, he frowned, recalling his conversation with Mrs Hudson and fearing he was about to be burdened with the consequences of a maniacal Sherlock whirling through Barts pathology laboratory.

“Hello Molly,” he answered cautiously.

“Oh, hello… John? This is John speaking, isn’t it?” the pathologist’s tremulous soprano stuttered. 

“Well, seeing as you phoned my number, who did you expect?” John re-joined.

“Haha,” she guffawed, tons of embarrassment surging along the line all the way from wherever she was to 221B Baker Street. “You’re right. Eh, I meant to ask, is everything okay with Sherlock?”

John threw the man in question a gander. Sherlock had rolled over onto his side and was clutching the cushion with the devotion of a toddler hugging his pet stuffed toy, a blithe smile suffusing his face.

“It seems like it,” he replied. “He’s asleep on our rug so I can’t ask him.”

“Asleep on your…” Molly sounded aghast. “Did you check his breathing and his pulse,” she added. “Have you put him in the recovery position? Did you ring 999?”

“No.” Hearing Molly’s anxiety John promptly switched to comforting doctor mode. “There’s nothing wrong with him, Molly, apart from exhaustion. Believe me, this isn’t the first time he’s toppled over from sheer lack of sleep. Although he usually makes it to the sofa.”

“Oh, John.” Strangely, the information did nothing to ease Molly’s distress. “He isn’t just asleep, I’m afraid he overdosed.”

“What?” John shouted into the phone, his alarm a worthy companion of Molly’s. “What happened?” Forcing himself to breathe regularly he sidled towards Sherlock and bent over to try and lift the only tightly scrunched eyelid he could reach with ease. Sherlock’s pupil reacted to the influx of light and John’s hand was swatted at, as if he was an annoying fly. Both Sherlock’s heart rate and his respiratory rate were perfectly normal for someone actively enjoying the health benefits of a sojourn in Morpheus’ arms. Apart from the choice of location, nothing suggested anything was remiss with the world’s only consulting detective.

“He seems fine,” John said in unison with Molly’s “He seemed fine when he left.”

“But?”

Heaving a deep breath Molly began, “He came in this morning, all excited like, well, himself. He wanted to test some pills, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, you know, MDMA. Of course I refused, I was thinking of that brother of his, but then he went all funny and said it took all sorts but he got his kicks from preventing more young people dying from ecstasy rather than cutting them open.”

Her tone fell as she recounted the jibe, which had no doubt been delivered in Sherlock’s customary snide manner.

“Hhmm, not good.” John commented.

“Oh no, he was right, actually. Not about me enjoying all those poor people dying and… but well, there have been an awful lot of them lately, and all from the same cause, a MDMA overdose.”

“Christ, poor bastards.”

“Yes. One kid, he was twelve years old, thirteen maybe. Can you imagine, John, a child that young, dying from an overdose? Sherlock didn’t tell me how he knew and how he came by those pills and I didn’t care. I knew with him looking into it people wouldn’t be dying from those filthy drugs any more.” 

“Someone in his homeless network tipped him the wink probably,” John thought aloud. “Then what happened?”

“Nothing much,” replied Molly. “You know what he’s like, eyes glued to the microscope, muttering, using up all my test tubes, ordering me around. I had to attend a staff meeting at four so he had the lab to himself for an hour but he seemed much the same when I returned. All he gave me when I asked how he’d been was a grunt. Shortly after, he strode off without so much as a see you.”

Wincing on Molly’s behalf John said, “I see.”

“Then, as I was cleaning up the lab Debbie Crawford dropped in with steam coming out of her ears,” Molly continued.

“Oh.” Unfortunately, John was well acquainted with Dr Deborah Crawford, head of Barts pharmacy department. A few months ago Sherlock had corrected the woman in front of her entire staff regarding the terminal half-life of _Bentazepam_. Shortly after, Dr Crawford had got wind of the less salubrious details of Sherlock’s past career as an addict and, to the frequent repetition of the maxim ‘once an addict, always an addict’, been campaigning to have Sherlock banned from the hospital ever since.

“She’d attended the staff meeting as well. When she returned one of her assistants told her he’d spotted Sherlock crossing their floor. Debbie immediately went to check their opioid cabinet. The lock was untampered with but when she went through its contents she found three tablets of heroin were missing.”

“Heroin? Tablets?” John repeated, dumbfounded. “Why would he steal those? There’s hardly a rush—” Sudden realisation silenced him. At his feet, Sherlock snorted and turned onto his other side. “Christ, you think—” His head whirled with the names of famous speedball victims.

“I think you’d better ring 999, John,” Molly replied, gravely. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, right?”

She ended the call, leaving John staring numbly at the mobile in his hand. Another snort galvanised him into action and he speed dialled 221B Baker Street’s personal emergency number, stored under _M_. 

Once he came round Sherlock would be livid at John for involving his brother but unlike Sherlock John was taking no chances with his friend’s life.

***

The claim that only a sloth moved slower than Mycroft was Sherlock’s best-loved barb in the perpetual war of attrition he fought with his brother. Whatever the allegation’s veracity, it certainly didn’t hold true when it came to Mycroft’s direction of his minions. John had barely returned his phone to his pocket when an ambulance screeched to a halt in front of Speedy’s and a couple of heavy-set personnel charged up the seventeen steps and into the living room.

In less than ten seconds Sherlock was strapped to a gurney and being carried down the stairs with John hurrying to keep up while struggling into his jacket and yelling at Mrs Hudson they were taking Sherlock to the hospital.

Two days later Sherlock was still asleep and John was certain the seat of the Royal London’s Hospital visitor chair he’d been camping in, for all its comforts, would remain imprinted on his rear for the rest of his life. 

Initial tests had confirmed Molly’s diagnosis of Sherlock self-administering an almost lethal dose of heroin to counter the effects of an equally fatal dose of MDMA he must have swallowed earlier.

Amazingly, as far as could be determined Sherlock’s vital functions seemed unaffected by his self-doctoring. His body responded satisfactorily to every possible test, save for the crucial one of actually waking up. Each time John tried to rouse him Sherlock would roll onto his other side, mumbling distractedly. John didn’t catch any actual words but even these vague mutterings bolstered John’s morale and encouraged his belief Sherlock might escape this round of experimenting with death unscathed.

“Yet another example of my brother’s extreme foolishness,” Mycroft commented in reproving tones during his second visit, but the anguished twitch of the lines in the corner of his left eye belied his censorious observation.

“Silly, silly boy,” Mrs Hudson lamented, her fingers clasping the hand free from IV-lines and sensors. “Sacrificing his health to help others and still people will call him names. It’s not fair.”

For his part, John’s opinion regarding Sherlock’s reasons for dousing himself with ecstasy veered along less benign courses but he saved those arguments for the shouting match he and Sherlock would enter once the latter was hale and hearty again.

“Mrs Hudson is right, though,” argued Molly. She’d arrived staggering under a bunch of yellow roses, which now took pride of place on Sherlock’s bedside table. The abundance of golden blossoms effectively diminished the single red rose the colour of blood that had materialised there during a quick break for the loo and been stymying John ever since, especially as the discreetly elegant card attached to its long stem bore nothing but a svelte _W_.

“Come on,” John disputed. “I agree he managed to stay clean for a long time but in the end this proves…”

“…Nothing,” Molly interrupted with uncharacteristic vehemence. “Apart from his dedication to his work. I was with him for the whole day, John, watching his frustration grow by the minute. I admit taking that MDMA was a stupid thing to do but… but because of his past he must have reckoned himself immune to the worst of its effects. I just wish he hadn’t waited until I left. He must have been so afraid, all alone and with his heartbeat going through the roof. You’ll have to agree taking the heroin did make a weird kind of sense.”

“Weird, yes,” John latched onto the word. “As weird as consciously swallowing a death pill.”

“He was trying to help people,” Molly maintained stubbornly.

John would have loved to hear the opinion of a fourth person who would certainly have visited if circumstances had permitted. However, Sherlock’s idiotic/heroic (the adjective of choice depending on the observer) action coincided with a last-ditch attempt at saving the Lestrade marriage by means of a romantic getaway in the Berkshire Downs so he had to comply with waiting another four days for Greg’s view on this novel drug test his consulting detective had developed.

***

After Greg’s rather lengthy exposé over a pint of bitter on his determination to turn the holiday into an astounding success, the last thing John expected was for the DI to contact him.

“What’s up with Sherlock? I’ve sent him forty-three texts over the last six hours.” Greg’s harried tone told John Oxfordshire’s gently rolling hills had done little to level the rocky road of his relationship.

“He’s asleep,” John answered and went on to explain what had happened.

“Bloody hell,” Greg swore. “Of all the stupid things to do… But he will be all right, won’t he?” he enquired, his basic decency and sincere affection for Sherlock overriding his almost constant exasperation with the younger man’s antics.

“There seems nothing seriously wrong with him apart from the fact he won’t wake up.” 

“Bloody hell,” Greg exclaimed again. “Jesus. I hope this doesn’t mean we—”

“What did you want him for?” John cut in rather more brusquely than he’d intended but to have Greg voice his own darkest fears was the last thing he needed right now. 

“I guess you haven’t had a chance to see the news,” began Greg. “It’s these murders, here in the Downs. Right up Sherlock’s street. There’s four of them now, all with their head chopped off.”

“Jesus,” John breathed. “How?”

“We don’t know. A sword, most likely. One blow at terrible speed. Nothing to connect the victims except for the fact they were all killed around midnight outside in the fields.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah. You know I’m on holiday and this isn’t the Met’s division anyway, but an old mate of mine, Toby Gregson, is with the Thames Valley Police and he rang to ask for me to try and get Sherlock onto the case. The whole county is in an uproar and Toby’s at his wit’s end. He was counting on a few quiet years before his retirement, not a high-profile string of cold-blooded murders.”

“Yeah,” John sympathised and continued in a louder tone, carefully watching Sherlock’s face. “Four murders you said?”

A large part of him had expected the mention of a murder enquiry would rouse his friend as if by magic and was disappointed when Sherlock’s features remained impassive.

“Yes,” Greg confirmed, naturally oblivious of John’s ploy.

“Well,” John sighed. “I’ll tell him the minute he wakes up but perhaps you’ll have a breakthrough before that.”

“Hardly likely.” Greg sounded as downhearted as John felt. “We’re stumped. And Karen is livid. But I can’t very well leave an old mate in the lurch, can I?”

“No. Of course,” agreed John, his brain ferreting around for a few words to boost the other man’s morale. “Perhaps you should buy her a few dozen red roses once this is over,” he came up with in the end. “I hear they work wonders.”

***

Naturally, Sherlock chose to wake up at the worst possible time. Mycroft was just bending solicitously over his brother’s face to brush back an errant curl when Sherlock opened his eyes and immediately closed them again with a loud exclamation of disgust.

“For God’s sake, Mycroft. What do you think you’re doing?”

Mycroft froze, fingertips hovering an inch above his younger sibling’s brow. Then, with a tremendous show of dignity, he drew himself up to his full height and cast Sherlock a pointed cold look.

“Hello, brother mine.” His tone could have halved an iceberg. “Welcome back from your little trip. I trust you had fun.”

“What the…” For a moment Sherlock seemed confused, then he lashed out, “It was an experiment. Fun had nothing to do with it.”

“Of course. An experiment. I’d forgotten that’s your preferred term for indulging in whatever vile substance is at your disposal. How foolish of me. My most sincere apologies,” Mycroft replied with suave insincerity. Behind his back, hidden from Sherlock’s view, the umbrella swung portentously, like a pendulum in an Edgar Allen Poe story whose ever-widening arc boded imminent doom. 

“All right, you two, stop it.” John entered the fray, brandishing his penlight with a doctor’s authority. “Sherlock, how are you feeling?”

“I was fine until I caught sight of _him_.” Sherlock glowered at Mycroft who heaved a sigh that denoted decades of putting up with a galling younger sibling.

“It seems my little brother has come through his ‘experiment’ unscathed,” he addressed John. “And wholly unrepentant,” he added for Sherlock’s benefit.

“Shouldn’t you be off starting a war somewhere?” snubbed the former patient, whose wan looks were speedily improving thanks to the heat of the argument. “Or stuff yourself with cake at some ghastly gathering for supercilious bores.”

“Oh, do grow up,” Mycroft deflected. “Any five-year-old would rather bite his tongue than resort to such a puerile repartee. And—” The umbrella was raised threateningly as if it was a Neanderthal club rather than a swathe of ridiculously expensive silk furled around an elaborately polished length of Malacca cane. “Please remember our agreement next time you decide to alleviate your perpetual ennui through the aid of illegal substances. If it hadn’t been for Miss Hooper’s excellent deduction and swift action you’d probably be reduced to a permanent vegetative state. Which might be the best means at keeping you out of mischief.”

A long time ago – when his acquaintance with the Holmes siblings and their interaction was still fresh – John would have winced hearing such harsh words and have spoken up on Sherlock’s behalf. Now – better aware of the lay of the land – and relieved to discover Sherlock’s health miraculously undamaged, John was inclined to let Mycroft vent his anger and worry, all the more because in this he heartily concurred with the elder Holmes’ feelings. 

“Oh, please.” Sherlock bared his teeth at his brother and spoke directly to John. “John, as my doctor I want you to order this pompous clod out of the room. His hostility has a detrimental effect on my health.” 

John shook his head, gaze flicking towards Mycroft to confirm they were in agreement for once. “Excuse me,” he forwarded, het up at his flatmate’s outrageous cheek. “If it weren’t for Mycroft you wouldn’t have a private room to try and order him out of or any health left.”

“Come on.” Sherlock had the gall to pooh-pooh John’s assertion. “I was in full control of the experiment from first to last.”

“As you so adequately showed by face planting into our rug,” sneered John.

“Even I have to sleep on occasion,” Sherlock pouted, obviously deploring this characteristic of his transport. “I was aiming for my bedroom when I was distracted by…” His eyes took on a glassy look and his voice was grave when he enquired, “How long have I been out?”

“You’ve been in a coma for nearly four days,” Mycroft supplied unhelpfully. Thankfully, Sherlock ignored him, too engrossed in whatever he was turning over in his mind.

“How many others,” he asked. “Besides the woman with the dog?”

“What is it now?” Mycroft rolled his eyes. “This dissembling…”

“No,” John intervened, his memory suddenly joining the dots between Mrs Hudson’s rambling chatter, the backdrop behind the pretty BBC journalist and Greg’s phone call. “There is a case, in Berkshire. Four people beheaded in the Vale of White Horse.”

“Four!” Hearing this Sherlock scooted into an upright position and began tugging at the IV drip in his left hand. “The Thames Valley Police are idiots,” he muttered.

“What are you doing?” shrieked John, simultaneously with Mycroft’s rebuking, “They’re highly trained professionals, Sherlock. You can trust them to do the best they can.”

“Am I saying otherwise?” Sherlock snarled, submitting to John’s medical attentions on his hand. “Where’s my phone?” he demanded. “One of Lestrade’s old pals is with the Thames Valley force. The Met’s average IQ got a definite boost the day he was transferred, pity they enrolled Anderson soon after and lowered it again.”

“DI Gregson, you mean,” John enquired, securing a dressing on top of Sherlock’s hand with a piece of micropore.

“Yes. Now did you have Mrs Hudson bring me a shirt… Hang on,” Sherlock interrupted himself. “How do you know his name? He’s from way before we met.” His eyes narrowed. “Ah,” he gleaned. “The romantic restoration week. So that was the last straw, then?”

John nodded. “Yes, Greg sounded knocked for six.”

“So sorry to intrude but may I just check?” Mycroft enquired in a tone as silkily smooth as a pint of clotted cream. “Do you two really intend to go rushing after a murderer four days after Sherlock OD’d?”

For a moment John was embarrassed – but really, Sherlock was fully back to his usual self and his zest every bit as contagious as John’s own zeal for the thrill of the chase. Sherlock quashed his qualms with a disparaging, “If you have nothing else on, brother dear, you may as well make yourself useful and do the paperwork to have me released. Shuffling papers around is _your_ speciality, after all.”

“If you walk out of this hospital now I won’t move a finger the next time you decide to engage in a bout of _controlled usage_.” With those arch words Mycroft gathered his umbrella and his dignity and strode from the room, chin tipped so highly in the air John was amazed he didn’t bump into the door jamb.

“Now you’ve done it,” he turned to Sherlock whose hand emerged from a shirtsleeve in time to wave him off.

“He always promises but he loves sticking his big fat nose where it isn’t wanted far too much. Come on, John, hand me my coat. We’ve got a murderer to catch.” 

***

Their cab came round the corner of Baker Street to find Mrs Hudson awaiting them under Speedy’s awning with their luggage, as promised. She was locked in deep communion with Ryan and only said goodbye when John opened the door of the car.

“Such a shame,” she confided as John collected the holdalls. “They’re going on a romantic weekend and Ryan had set his heart on Berkshire, but what with these murders they’ll do the Lakes instead.”

“Hmmhmm.” John devoted his full attention to helping the cabbie stowing the bags in the car boot.

“Hello love.” Mrs Hudson bent over towards the back seat where Sherlock sat thrumming his fingers restlessly on his knee. “I’m so glad you’re up and about again. But do you think it’s wise to go chasing a murderer so soon after your overdose? We all know you love dashing about but Ryan said…”

The conversation’s remainder was lost to John for the cabbie nearly dropped Sherlock’s smart leather travelling bag into the puddle at his feet.

“Your mate a junkie?” he demanded, his tone rather aggressive for someone working in the service industry. “No smack heads in my cab. I can do without the hassle from the cops.”

“Are you serious?” re-joined John, wishing he possessed but an extra inch of the Holmes’ height and lofty arrogance. “That bloke, a junkie? I’d have sooner called you the King of England?”

“Then why…”

Just then Mrs Hudson was pulling her head out of the door opening with a last entreaty at Sherlock not to succumb to temptation during the case. 

“I’d be very sorry for you to have your head lopped off, dear,” she concluded and John jumped onto the reflection as a chance to show something might be the matter with _her_ head through a meaningful wriggle of his eyebrows. The cabbie nodded his understanding and guided her solicitously back onto the pavement, against her protestations.

“My Nan ended the same way, you know,” he confided to John upon returning to the car. “We had to put her into a home, real sad.”

Mentally apologising to Mrs Hudson John shrugged in acknowledgement. “I’m sorry to hear that. And ta,” he said. As the taxi veered away from the kerb and slotted into the traffic John took care to turn and wave at their landlady with more enthusiasm than usual. From now on he would patiently suffer listening to every single detail of the married ones’ ups and downs and ins and outs. For a month or so.

***

At Didcot Parkway station they were greeted by a subdued DI Gregory Lestrade. 

“They’ve just found the fifth,” he announced, sombrely. “A sixteen-year-old girl who’d sneaked out after hours to visit her friend. Jesus, what’s wrong with these people.” It wasn’t entirely clear whether he was referring to wayward teenagers or ruthless killers. Possibly both.

“I’ve put you up in the hotel Karen and I were staying,” he continued, relieving John from the burden of Sherlock’s overnight bag. Sherlock, unsurprisingly, had vaulted from the carriage in one long-legged, impossibly graceful leap, leaving John to deal with such low-down encumbrances as one’s luggage. “Anyway, we’re the only guests. Every booking for miles around has been cancelled. The hoteliers are biting our heads off, no pun intended. Karen left yesterday morning. So that’s the marriage down the drain.”

“Come on, George,” Sherlock shouted, hopping impatiently from one foot onto the other next to Greg’s car. “If there’s a new one we have a small chance forensics hasn’t tampered with the evidence too badly yet.”

“Which evidence?” Greg shot back. “There’s nothing to go on but the victims, poor bastards. But don’t worry, I secured the fourth and the fifth scenes. Even the bodies and heads are still there. We’ve just placed a tent over them to screen them from sight and keep off the worst of the flies.”

“Excellent.” Sherlock rubbed his hands in satisfaction. “Well done, Geoff. At last you’re picking up my methods. It’s taken you appallingly long but better late than never.” He looked exceedingly pleased with his delivery of this covert praise that was veiled as an insult and eyed John expectantly, like a puppy that had just produced a pile of poo smack bang in the centre of a priceless Persian rug and now sat wagging its tail in expectancy of a reward and being cooed over and called a ‘good little doggy’.

“Just ignore him, Greg,” John advised.

“Yeah,” Greg concurred, motioning for John to take the passenger seat. “It’s what I’ve been doing for the last five years. Should have started sooner, I guess.”

***

The car’s atmosphere didn’t improve during their drive to the Vale. The Met Police official – whom John had witnessed hurtling his vehicle effortlessly down the City’s permanently gridlocked streets during numerous heart-stopping chases after absconding criminals – now pretended to be utterly absorbed by the challenges of miles of gently undulating empty road. Sherlock, meanwhile, sat sulking in the back of the car because John had decreed they would check in at the hotel first. 

“Is he really up to it?” Greg enquired in an undertone as they busied themselves with lifting the luggage out of the boot. “I mean, shouldn’t he be in observation or something?”

“I’m as baffled as you are,” confessed John. The open car boot door offered them an opportunity at stealthy observation of their friend who appeared/pretended to be oblivious, intent on scrolling through his phone. “From what the specialist told me the amount of drugs he took would have knocked down a horse but save for a coma that lasted almost four days he seems none the worse for wear. He’s back to his old self, as you’ve already found out.” 

“Yeah,” Greg replied, gloomily. “I can’t wait for him to meet Toby. Jesus Christ.”

The hotel’s receptionist handed John two keys with the earnest wish the Vale of White Horse terror would be dispatched ASAP. The nation’s press corps might have descended on the Vale in droves but, though they consumed copious amounts of spirits and Ploughman’s lunches their presence didn’t make up for the loss of income from day trippers, walkers, newlyweds and weekenders. Tourism was the head upon which the Vale depended.

John considered the simile in rather bad taste but he appreciated escaping the item treatment for a change. How ironic this should befall them in a place geared up for catering to every amorous platitude. Should he ever have a chance at dating a woman again this would be the last place he’d take her, John mused after having recovered from the sight of the heart-shaped bed covered by a scarlet satin quilt and an assortment of throw-cushions large enough to put the fear of God into the heart of even the soppiest romantic.

“The bath is ridiculous,” Sherlock complained during their short ride down the lift. “It’s far too big. The water will be cold by the time it’s filled.”

“So, where do we go first?” John changed the subject. “The fourth victim?” Greg, who joined them in the lobby, hummed his consent. 

“The fifth is the freshest,” objected Sherlock. “Best chance of gathering unspoilt evidence there.” 

“The fourth victim is a happily married father of two young children,” Greg protested. “He’s been lying in a ditch for twenty-four hours awaiting your arrival. We would like to release the body to the family.”

“If they’ve been waiting a day they can wait a few more hours,” Sherlock snapped. “Looking at him first may lessen the chance of catching his murderer. That’s all the satisfaction we can give them now, wouldn’t you agree, Detective Inspector.”

“Yeah, but…” After an admirable start Greg ceased abruptly, probably recognising arguments were futile before the towering force of scientific deduction Sherlock was about to unleash on an unsuspecting populace. “Fine,” he conceded, his posture deflated. “Have it your way, then. She’s not too far from here, just five miles.”

“Excellent, Detective Inspector,” Sherlock replied, with the benign air of a king who’s just received a gratifying tribute of ever-lasting devotion from his lowly underlings. “Lead the way.”

***

No one but the world’s only consulting detective wouldn’t be upset by the contrast between the abject cruelty of the crime scene, the pastoral loveliness of the surroundings and the victim’s youth. In Afghanistan John had strived to relieve the worst effects of human capability at damaging other lives. None of those countless wounded and dead had struck him as much as this girl, mowed down in the lane behind her own home. 

At Sherlock’s instigation the white tent was removed. He declared he needed an untouched view of the scene. John expressed some anxiety on behalf of the parents, which Sherlock duly ignored.

“Don’t worry,” Greg grunted. “Toby’s sergeant is with them in the front room.” Together they watched Sherlock, who had whipped out his magnifier and was now scrutinising a part of the hedge that ran along the lane. To John it looked like any ordinary country hedge, green with lots of flowers. “The garden runs for a good fifty yards,” continued Greg, motioning vaguely into the direction of a house they couldn’t discern through the screen of various shrubs and trees. “The rest of the family have their bedrooms at the front of the house. They never heard a thing. Poor folk, the parents are mad with grief. If possible, we should prevent Sherlock talking to them.”

“Well, you know what he’s like,” John said, watching with fascination as Sherlock’s cool wool-clad knees sank into the mud to grant the sleuth a closer investigation of what was hidden amongst the grass, earth and horse dung that comprised most of the floor. He was already deploring the lane’s effect on his shoes, which were sturdy and sensible, and had probably cost less than a tenth of Sherlock’s trousers.

“Greg, you’re back,” an enthusiastic voice boomed behind their backs, “and you brought Holmes, thank God.” John spun round to see a stout man hurrying towards them down the narrow lane, his arms outstretched in welcome. 

“Mr Holmes.” He clasped John’s hand, pumping it up and down vigorously, as if wishing to crank up his detection levels through sheer avidity. “Tobias Gregson, the Detective Inspector leading this investigation. Frankly, we’re at sea. Greg has told me of all your wonderful tricks so I put all my hopes on you.”

“Yes, well. Sherlock is giving it his all,” replied John, angling his head in the direction of the – modestly covered by flowing yards of expensive tweed – rear sticking up behind them. “John Watson. Happy to help.”

“Of course, of course, the worthy companion. You’re welcome too,” Gregson hallooed, preparing to inch past John and Greg and address the leading man directly. He was prevented by Sherlock jumping to his feet with the easy swiftness of a leopard that has just spotted a rival and snarling at the hapless DI with matching feline ferocity.

“ _I_ know who you are. My study of the mountain of cold cases you left behind at New Scotland Yard told me enough. You’re lazy, incompetent, utterly unfit for police work of any kind. A traffic warden would be ashamed to call you a colleague. The shoddy treatment of this crime scene eclipsed my worst fears of what I would find.” 

Here he broke off to heave the breath necessary for continuing his harangue. Greg made use of the pause to step in on his associate’s behalf. 

“You can hardly blame Toby for last night’s downpour, Sherlock. Remember, she wasn’t found until this morning.”

“Six pair of different shoes left their marks since then,” the detective seethed. “Here is the imprint of the mother’s trainers, galloping about, but that I can allow. These marks however… Where do you find your forensic experts… at the local kindergarten? Or no, the average two-year-old would have…”

“Yes, thank you,” John interceded. Unlike Sherlock, he had been watching the Thames Valley Police DI during the tirade and noticed the man’s colour turn from a healthy rubicund to a decidedly unwholesome purple. From the way he balled his hands John concluded they were on the brink of an unprofessional tussle. He was ready to concede this would strengthen Sherlock’s arguments but the shuffle would also have a detrimental effect on the already wrecked crime scene and likely result in Sherlock’s re-admittance to the hospital. John’s flatmate might be more than twenty years Gregson’s junior and a master at Baritsu, boxing and fencing but the irate DI had at least two inches, eighty pounds and absolute motivation to commend him.

“I warned you.” Greg had grabbed Gregson’s arm and spoke to him in urgent, soothing tones. “I totally understand you want to punch him but it will just make him worse. Just turn a deaf ear to the insults and listen to the deductions. That works best.”

Between them Greg and John managed to enforce a frigid entente. Sherlock declared the scene had provided him with all the clues left to gather by non-idiots and expressed a wish to explore the fourth crime scene. Gregson swallowed his pride and offered to chauffeur them. His car was larger than Greg’s and the victim was cut down at the Vale’s other end, near Woolstone.

Had circumstances been different John would have derived some pleasure from the journey. Most of Sherlock’s cases confined them to London, which was only logical given the fact the metropolis housed more than a fifth of the country’s population and an even larger amount of vice and folly. But John always enjoyed their ventures in the countryside, despite the often sad occasion that warranted them.

They were halfway down Uffington’s narrow streets when Sherlock cried out for them to stop. 

“John and I will be having a drink,” he announced, pointing backwards at the building they’d just passed. This, John saw when he turned in his seat, was indeed a pub, one of those quaint rambling edifices that served so nicely in BBC historical dramas to convey a sense of merry olde Englande. 

“What?” Greg and the plagued Thames Valley DI exploded in unison and John considered it necessary to add they’d better have a look at the fourth scene first.

“Why?” Sherlock countered. “Whatever we could learn there has long been destroyed thanks to a certain someone’s ineptitude.” Through the rear-view mirror he cast Gregson a withering look that was instantly doubled and returned but glanced off Sherlock’s person like water off an otter’s pelt. “The landlord and his wife will be a prime source of local gossip and peculiarities. Until another body turns up our best approach lies in gathering information. You two can stay in the car. You’ve got police written all over you and we don’t want to frighten them into silence.”

With that parting shot he threw open the door and legged it out of the car. John shrugged in apology to Gregson and his friend and hurried after his flatmate who stood waiting for him with his customary impatience beneath a jauntily fluttering parasol. 

“We’re press,” he instructed John, flashing a card that proclaimed him to be an employee of the _Daily Mail_. “Our photographer will be joining us later. These people love nothing better than seeing their own name in black and white.”

After the bright glare of the sun outside John’s eyes needed some seconds to adjust to the gloom that prevailed within the house. The first thing he noticed was the bar, built from local stone with an invitingly gleaming beer pump. Behind it the landlord regarded them, arms crossed in front of a belly that proclaimed he wasn’t averse to sampling his own wares.

“Hello sir…” Sherlock began in suave tones, only to be interrupted by a gruff, “You’re press? We’re not talking to you vultures.” 

“Press,” Sherlock ejaculated, astonishment and outrage battling for supremacy on his face. “Good heavens, no. Why ever would you think so? Do we look like journalists?” 

“Disaster tourists, then,” the entrepreneur deduced. “Even worse.”

“My dear man,” Sherlock laughed. “You couldn’t be wider of the mark. We’re tourists, yes, but Matt and I came down to celebrate the love we found here, in this very Vale, exactly five years ago. Didn’t we, darling?” 

He pivoted on his heel and – to John’s ultimate horror – drew him close and planted his lips squarely on the top of John’s head, beaming with the starry-eyed candour of a _Mills & Boon_ heroine. “So sad our happiness should coincide with such sorrowful events. But the police are on it, I suppose. We considered cancelling our reservation but that felt plain wrong. If it hadn’t been for the horse we would never have met. We’d both come down here to admire it but as soon as I saw Matt I had eyes for nothing and no one but him.”

“Oh.” The pub owner, whose profession must have inured him against the trials of dealing with many hours of inane drivel, appeared on the cusp of floundering under this tsunami of humdrum intelligence.

“I really thought of cancelling, you know, when that horrid murder was on the news,” Sherlock confided. “But then I said to myself: ‘Ryan,’ I said, ‘you’re a man. If you cancel now you’ll never be able to look Matt in the eye again and that’s the last thing you want. Besides, Matt will look after you.’ You will protect me, sweetheart, won’t you?” 

He cornered John with his most beseeching stare and for all of ten seconds John was afraid his flatmate would go as far as to kiss John right then and there. Thankfully, Sherlock thought better of it and confined himself to gracing the host with a moony smile and John with another look of awe-struck tenderness.

“You’d better not go moon gazing, though,” cautioned the landlord. “Now what will you gentlemen have?”

“Half a pint of your best bitter,” John ventured immediately. After this recent shock he could do with a beer to sustain him.

“Really, Matt, love,” Sherlock’s tone communicated sincere disappointment. “You know what beer does for your love handles.”

“Nothing a little love won’t massage away,” John retaliated. “I can’t wait for tonight, sugar nuts.” Lifting his glass he drank deeply, observing his flatmate over the rim. The likelihood of him ever showing his face in this local again was negligible so he might as well give Sherlock the works and embarrass him on one of the few terrains where John was more knowledgeable than his friend. Most gratifyingly, Sherlock obliged by blushing all the way up into the roots of his hair.

“Oh, naughty language, darling,” he managed but he’d clearly caught the message and determined to traipse less dangerous paths. 

“Even if I hadn’t Matt to keep me warm I wouldn’t venture outside for all the gold in the world,” he laid into the enquiry directly, after ordering a sparkling mineral water for himself. “I know the police are onto it and all, but still it can’t be safe outside.”

“The police.” The noise produced by the proprietor was an admirable imitation of the sounds Sherlock emitted when someone mentioned Anderson in his vicinity. “Idle fatheads, the whole sorry lot of them.”

“Really?” Sherlock pretended sincere surprise. “In London…”

“Even worse,” the owner asserted, brandishing Sherlock’s drink as if it were a Molotov cocktail. “They’ve brought in this copper from Scotland Yard and look at all the good he’s done. Two fresh stiffs… one of them a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“It’s a shame,” Sherlock concurred. “But I can’t imagine they don’t have a clue. Surely there must be something.”

“It’s the horse,” a voice croaked behind them. “That horse is the embodiment of evil.”

“Steven,” the landlord said in a warning tone, at the same time mouthing at John and Sherlock, _Way too fond of stories he is. Never mind him._

“Why would you say that?” Sherlock focussed his full attention on the man who’d spoken up, a poorly-dressed pensioner with a wizened head of white hair. 

“I saw that, Micky Harrison.” The man shook a reproving finger at the host. “To make amends you may serve me another pint.”

“Steven. Do you think…”

“Another pint, you rascal,” the old man swore.

“Eh, put it on our tab,” Sherlock suggested hastily and hotfooted it to the man’s table.

“Ryan Smith.” He proffered his hand which was duly accepted and proceeded to introduce John. “And the love of my life, Matt Jones.”

“Hello.” John shook the old man’s hand politely while glaring at Sherlock who patted the chair next to him with an encouraging, “Over here, dearest.”

“Steven Commodore. Pleasure to meet you and thanks. Here’s to your health.” Mr Commodore raised his glass to them both, drank and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Ah. That’s better, bless you. I don’t mind talking to you. You can’t help our dear Lord made you the way you are though it’s a flaw in His creation. That horse is the devil’s work, I tell you. Everyone says it will rise to dance on Dragon Hill once good King Arthur arises but those are fairy stories, good for putting the youngsters to bed. No—” Their informant lowered his voice, requiring Sherlock and John to bring their heads closer to his and into the oppressing smell of beer that clothed the man like an alcoholic armour. 

“And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him,” Commodore thundered, finger raised with the authority of a priest admonishing his congregation – an abject assortment of aberrant, wicked reprobates – from the elevated moral platform of his pulpit. “And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

“Gosh, wow,” Sherlock whimpered, eyes wide in a mixture of wonder and fear. “That’s straight out of _Game of Thrones_ , isn’t it, love?”

Completely caught by surprise John almost choked on his beer. The last thing on earth he’d expected was for Sherlock to be up-to-date with this particular segment of mass entertainment. Somehow the notion of Sherlock binge-watching hours of rampant sex, intricate torture and vicious tribal warfare was more disturbing than having him end up in a hospital bed after indulging his taste for various kinds of stimulants and opiates. And this was the man who’d claimed he’d never even heard of James Bond.

“Game of Thrones?” For an instant Commodore’s befuddled face echoed John’s sense of bewilderment. Then insight swept away the dirty rags of confusion and he barked in imitation of a laugh. “Ha, you can say that, you young sinner. A game of thrones between the devil and our Saviour. That horse has been lying there for centuries, waiting for the seals to be broken.”

“Seals, what seals?” Sherlock enquired, seemingly engrossed by this raving claptrap. 

“What seals?” the old man repeated, appalled by Sherlock’s lack of general knowledge. “The seals on the Book of Revelation, you fledgling fool. Everybody knows the horse will rise when the Lamb breaks the first seal and search its Master and now it’s found him. The Grim Reaper rides that horse and wields its scythe and mows down everyone standing in his way.”

“Hmm, interesting theory,” Sherlock mused. “Though hardly compatible with Newton’s laws of nature.”

“Newton? Laws of nature?” Commodore shrieked, beery spittle flying from his lips. “Balderdash and poppycock! What are the laws of nature to the Apocalypse? Not that you buggerers would want to know about that. You’ll be the first into the fire.”

“Steven!” the pub owner scolded his customer who replied by a sudden steady devotion to the ale left in his glass. 

“I told you not to buy him another pint,” the landlord continued in an almost equally reproving tone to Sherlock who merely shrugged and declared, “Oh no, but it’s absolutely thrilling and I’d never heard of it before. I knew about standing in the horse’s eye to meet your one true love of course.” A blush overtook his cheekbones and his lashes fluttered like the wings of a butterfly dancing across a field of gently undulating poppies. “I did that, you know,” he confessed and settled another longing look on John. “And it worked.”

Then and there John resolved he wouldn’t merely refrain from interfering next time DI Gregson – or anyone else for that matter – exhibited a wish to alleviate their exasperation with Sherlock’s conduct by means of their fists, but egg them on with the greatest gusto. He thanked his lucky stars Greg and Gregson had done as Sherlock told them and remained in the car. If New Scotland Yard’s homicide squads ever caught word of this caper the relentless teasing would haunt him for years of annual Met Police summer solstice BBQ’s and Christmas do’s.

“It sure did, sweetie,” he complied, and, under the table, drove the toe of his boot into Sherlock’s shin. 

“Oh!” Sherlock exclaimed, his wince morphing seamlessly into enthusiasm. “There’s no one in the world happier than us. Only imagine if this tale were true as well. Brr, isn’t that scary?”

“Yeah,” the proprietor agreed in a sombre voice. “We had a craze of punks last Hallow tide, worshipping the horse, idiots. All those stories are nothing but food for ruffians and hoodlums and bad for business. We don’t want those louts here but tourists that actually spend their money.”

“Ha, rhino, the root of all evil,” Commodore screeched. “Money won’t save you when the Four Horsemen ride the earth. I’ve seen them, for five nights now out in the fields. First comes the white horse, and then come the red and the black and the pale horse goes last, just as our Lord revealed to John in the great Book of Revelation. I watched them chop off Amelia Underwood’s head, punishing her for her idleness and vanity. Vile, vile woman.”

“That’s it,” bellowed the landlord. The man’s face had acquired such an unhealthy hue John feared he’d succumb to an apoplectic fit right behind his bar. “Get out! You’ve had enough to drink for today. I won’t have you scaring away my customers.”

“Scaring, ha,” the pensioner muttered, spearing the leaseholder with a mutinous look that he no doubt fancied akin to the evil eye. With some difficulty he got up from his chair and lifted his cane, which had been hanging from the back.

“Miscreants and sodomites, sons of Beelzebub, all of you. But the horse will get you,” he shook the cane at them and limped out of the pub.

“And a nice day to you too,” John wrapped up the sermon. Through the window he watched the old man hobble between the cheery array of picnic tables and parasols, a scarecrow from an ancient hell lost in the twenty-first century’s pleasure dome. 

“I warned you, didn’t I?” The proprietor had joined them to clear away the empty pint glass and now threw a glance after the slowly disappearing figure. “Mad as a march hare and the worst is he’s stirring others with his rot. Suddenly everyone is talking of these nags galloping about. Pants and piffle, that’s what I say. I was born and raised in the Vale and that horse doesn’t look different now than it did fifty years ago. No,” he shook his head. “Bad for business, that’s what it is.”

“Obviously,” consented Sherlock, reaching for his wallet. “How much do we owe you?”

***

Safely outside again John went straight for the jugular. “What the hell were you playing at in there?” he demanded. If it weren’t for the landlord and the two police officials observing them he would have stabbed Sherlock straight in the solar plexus with a very pointed finger.

“What? Why?” Sherlock yelped, having the gall to appear confused. At his usual tone he added: “Really, John, it’s hardly my fault we ran into the UK’s sole pub owner uninterested in a little free publicity. I had to come up quickly with something convincing.”

“Convincing?” scoffed John. “What, by pretending we’re a soppy pair of pansies? This is the first case in ages with no one treating us as an item and you have to play the gay card!”

“For God’s sake, John. No one is interested in your perpetual sexual identity crisis,” Sherlock sneered, underscoring his argument with a massive eye roll. “Sentiment is a weakness that undermines even the most hardened heart. They both fell for it and yielded us a trove of information it would have taken us days to uncover otherwise. Thanks to our little stopover the case is as good as solved. All that remains for us to do is find the perpetrator. On that I’ve got some definite ideas that will give Gregson a chance at proving he isn’t a complete waste of valuable space and air.” 

“Solved the case? When? How?” spluttered John, flummoxed as ever by the rash leap of Sherlock’s thought processes. Just as predictably Sherlock’s reply consisted of a pitying once-over, followed by a snooty, “Let’s say I got the answer straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“Wait!” John grasped the sleuth’s sleeve to prevent him from bolting for the car. “Game of Thrones,” he asked with a meaningful twitch of his eyebrow.

“I chanced upon it in your browsing history, John,” Sherlock responded. This time he seemed honestly confused and almost hurt by the implication John had considered the notion of Sherlock voluntarily partaking of the fare. “Why you choose to squander your time watching such utter tripe is beyond me but to each his own. Can we go now? We’ve got a criminal to catch, remember?” 

***

When John reached the car Gregson was steaming himself all up to a rant of epic proportions.

“What do you mean, go to the Abingdon station instead of the fourth crime scene,” he hollered, eyes bulging dangerously in their sockets.

“Toby, your blood pressure,” Greg cautioned, with a glare at Sherlock that would have skewered a horse. Sherlock, unsurprisingly, was about to return the honours by a selection of finely honed insults with cherries on top. 

“Right,” John jumped straight into the hornet’s nest that until a few moments ago had been a perfectly serviceable family car doubling as a police vehicle. “Let’s pretend we’re all adults here. Especially you.” These last words he directed straight at Sherlock who opened his mouth to protest but – after a quick mental calculus of John’s expression – appeared to acknowledge silence might work in his favour this time.

“Look, Detective Inspector,” John addressed the harassed Thames Valley DI who still sat fuming in his seat. “Sherlock is a drama queen and an arrogant git who likes nothing better than slagging off normal people like me and you. Believe me, I know, I share a flat with him and I feel like strangling him half the time. But he’s also bloody brilliant and incredibly good at what he does and trust me, if he’s telling you he doesn’t need to see the crime scene, he really doesn’t. No one is more interested than him in solving this case, nor more likely to do it.”

“John.” Sherlock shifted in his seat, as if John’s speech had roused the sentiment he always professed to lack.

“It’s all true, Toby,” Greg chipped in. “From the arrogant git part to the bloody brilliant part. The delivery could do with some fine-tuning but he gets you the package and in the end that’s all that matters.”

“I can’t help that you’re all idiots,” Sherlock contributed his tuppence to the dispute, like a defence barrister from hell.

“Not helping, Sherlock.” John stabbed Sherlock in the side with his elbow and perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. Sherlock huffed and wrapped himself tight in the protective chain mail of his Belstaff. The arch of his left eyebrow provided the phrase ‘arrogant git’ with fresh significance. After some mutual glowering Sherlock whipped out his phone and devoted himself to its screen. His whole stance demonstrated he was as mercilessly indifferent to the emotional turmoil raging around his person as the eye of the storm that leaves death and destruction in its wake.

“See what I mean?” Greg said, patting the other DI on the knee. 

Gregson grunted. The man’s hands, John noted, were doing unspeakable things to the steering wheel. To the experienced Sherlock-watcher John had become over time it was plain the DI’s mind was in a whirl, anxiously plunging the depths of his patience in dealing with the infuriating sphinx in the back seat who sat tapping away on his mobile, a secret smile quivering upon his lips. 

“Right,” the tormented police officer puffed at last, addressing a spot somewhere on the far horizon. “Right. I’m trusting you, Greg. You’re a good man and the best police officer I know—” 

Here Gregson fell silent and John fully expected him to ignite the motor and drive them off to the Abingdon local police post, when Gregson gripped the steering wheel even tighter, as if his hands were latched around Sherlock’s neck rather than an innocent assemblage of plastic and faux-leather. At a louder volume he took up again. “—so if you say I should put up with this _fucking_ big headed _prick_ I’ll do it. For the sake of the victims and their poor families, I’ll do it. But, by God, Greg, I swear, if you don’t whisk this uppity _sod_ out of my _frigging_ sight the minute he’s caught the killer I won’t stand for the consequences. I might _bloody_ well murder the little _shit_ myself! And you know what? They won’t even throw me in prison for it but give me a knighthood!”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Sherlock remarked offhandedly from deep within the folds of his coat. “I know the man who assembles the lists.” As an afterthought he added, “Unfortunately.”

“Erm, I’m afraid he really does,” John interjected hastily, mouthing _Mycroft_ at Greg in the rear-view mirror.

“Eh, yeah, Sherlock’s brother,” Greg explained to his seething colleague. “He’s something terribly secret and important in the Government, all very hush hush.”

“Oh.” Gregson deflated visibly, like a toy balloon landing on a rose bush and meeting an untimely end. “I see,” he said, though his puzzled demeanour indicated he really didn’t.

“Best go to Abingdon,” Greg advised at the gentle tone of a nurse talking to a patient still fuzzy from anaesthesia after major heart surgery. “I’ll contact the team and tell them to wrap up the scene. Look at it this way, we’ll be able to hand over the body to his loved ones much faster than we’d reckoned.”

“Remember to remind forensics to first sew the head back on, Gerald,” suggested Sherlock. “Or the family will be in for a nasty shock.”

***

To describe the vibes that held sway inside the vehicle as ‘off’ would be putting it mildly. During the half an hour Gregson needed to guide them along the A420 his gaze remained steadily fixed on Sherlock’s reflection in the rear-view mirror.

If he dreaded another firing ambush of infra dig barbs he needn’t have worried. The instant the car started Sherlock switched off his mobile and, tenting his fingers in front of his mouth, retreated into his mind palace. Rather than try to explain to Gregson what was happening John decided to enjoy the relative peace and quiet while it lasted so he dedicated his attention to the beauties of nature that sped past the side-window at a steady fifty miles an hour.

The Phony war ended as the car drew to a halt in front of Abingdon police station. In full flourishing fashion Sherlock flung open the rear passenger door and dashed from the car and into the building, leaving the three of them to fumble for the clasp of their seatbelts. Greg was muttering under his breath but Gregson had let go of previously erected constraints in a new bout of white-hot vexation.

“The devil take that sodding piece of _scum_. What’s he up to now?”

Inside the bewildered-looking (decidedly fit John couldn’t help noticing) PC peopling the front desk pointed them to corridor that branched off the lobby at the left. 

“It… he… that way,” she wheezed, throwing a belated ‘Sir’ after them as they hurried in the direction she’d specified. 

The corridor led to an open-plan office that showed a remarkable similarity to those inside New Scotland Yard’s Broadway premises. Packed with humanity and the sounds and smells produced by too many people in a room too small to contain them all, crossing its threshold felt akin to entering Wembley stadium at the precise instant Man United scored the decisive goal during penalty shoot-out. 

Walled off at the far end of the place was a tiny cubicle, which, going by the NSY floor plan John reckoned to be Detective Inspector Tobias Gregson’s personal dominion. The nameplate on the glass wall beside the door validated his deduction. Not that he needed the sign. Gregson’s harsh snort of outrage at the sight of the world’s only consulting detective seated behind the ancient steel desk and hammering away at the keyboard was just as conclusive.

“That computer is password protected!” the DI fell upon the personification of everything he’d quickly learned to loathe over the past few hours.

“Please,” scoffed Sherlock, features doused with such an abundance of derision John considered ferreting around for a mop in case it gushed onto the lino. “123456. That’s not a password, that’s an invite.”

“Listen, you…”

Unsurprisingly, Sherlock paid this injunction – issued by a police officer on duty – no attention at all, preferring to switch it instead to the photograph on proud display in a neat silver frame.

“No, _you_ listen,” he smirked. “If you’d possessed as much as an ounce of creativity you might have come up with something more challenging like Linda20 slash 06, or Whitney31 slash 10, or even Amy05 slash 08. Those might have deterred me – for all of three seconds at the maximum – but still.”

Greg’s quiet groan of exasperation put John straight into the picture. The photograph, he grasped, depicted Tobias Gregson’s nearest and dearest and somehow – though the how was beyond John, but then according to a certain someone he was an idiot – Sherlock had deduced their names and birthdays and, because he was the universe’s greatest show-off, decided to toss this intelligence into the DI’s face. 

“Jesus, Sherlock” he muttered, shaking his head disbelievingly. On impulse he laid a steadying hand on Gregson’s shoulder. The DI’s weathered complexion had turned puce and his rapid pants indicated he was close to hyperventilating. 

“Try to relax,” John implored. “Follow Greg’s example, he’s been putting up with this for years.” 

“I’m going to kill him,” Gregson rasped.

“I understand completely. How about a nice cup of tea instead?”

Meanwhile, Sherlock, bored with going the extra mile at riling hapless members of the National police force, shifted his attention back to the computer.

“There you have your chance at making yourself useful at last,” he reflected. “What can you tell us about Crazy Horse Ltd, Stables and Fun Events, newly established at a Knighton road.”

“Huh,” was Gregson’s eloquent reply.

“Crazy Horse?” Thought lines furrowed Greg’s brow. “Odd name. Isn’t that protected or something?”

“What?” Sherlock’s perplexed expression disclosed the investigation had reached that critical stage where an ignorance of the ins and outs of popular culture dragged down the consulting detective’s formidable deductive powers like a lead balloon. To John, on the other hand, Greg’s mention of the band’s name opened a can of almost forgotten memories of his father, reverently lowering the family stereo’s needle on the latest vinyl proof of musical genius.

“Didn’t they break up a long time ago?” he asked. 

“Rumours have it they’re back in the studio,” Greg answered. “Still. ‘Everybody Knows this is Nowhere’ remains the best thing they’ve done.”

“Yeah,” Gregson accorded heartily. “ ‘Down by the River’. Remember Greg?”

The DI’s exchanged a look and then, to John’s amusement and Sherlock’s utter astonishment, lined up for a gig of perfectly synchronised air guitar that would easily have earned them first place at the UKAG championship. If John had been on the jury he would have awarded the pair bonus points for technical merit, mimesmanship, stage presence and airness. The vocals – admittedly – left something to be desired but their reproduction of fretwork, chords, solos and technical moves was one in a million and they held their improvised stage with a charisma that would have rocked the Royal Albert Hall. Loud whoops and catcalls from the admiring audience at their backs accompanied the performance. Phones were whipped out to record this unique event and by the time the ace duo took a bow they were trending on Twitter.

Physically exhausted but mentally rejuvenated the DIs spun on their heels to confront the Commonwealth’s sole figure (though John conceded this may be a moot point as his grasp on Mycroft’s views regarding air guitar as an art form was nil) unable to appreciate the enormity of the event he’d just been privileged to witness first hand.

“Well, that was most enlightening,” Sherlock dismissed their collective explosion of creative ingenuity. “You two have just proven beyond any reasonable doubt what I’ve always contended, that the British CID forces are made up entirely of the biggest morons walking these isles. Are you done now? Can we get on with the case?”

“Yeah,” Greg replied sullenly. Both he and Gregson shuffled their feet like schoolboys caught shoplifting chewing gum.

“Crazy Horse Ltd,” Sherlock resumed fixing Gregson with a death-dealing glare. “Man and wife apparently. Bought the farm three months ago.”

“Hmm. Oh yes, I know.” Flurried by being one up on Sherlock at last Gregson pointed his finger in the air. “Young couple. They organise children’s birthday parties. You know, pony rides, bouncy castles, cupcake contests. Detective Sergeant Gove’s youngest celebrated her eighth birthday there. A huge success, apparently.”

“Good for her. Still, given population statistics it strikes me as a weird location for such an enterprise. Not all of Oxford’s indulgent parents will want to be locked up for almost an hour in a car with a party of overly excited children.”

“I’ve known worse,” Greg duly muttered not quite under his breath, a remark that Sherlock just as duly disregarded.

“Looks like they’re branching out,” he spoke to the Thames Valley DI instead. “They’ve been buying horses, four in just over a month.” 

That slice of information had John prick up his ears. Naturally, Sherlock picked up on the resulting slight shift of the hairs around John’s ear lobes and rewarded him with a complicit grin.

Not having visited the pub Gregson was at a disadvantage in judging the data’s possible relevance, choosing to complicate matters by concentrating on vacuous trivia. 

“Just how…” he began, his countenance twisting under a vast variety of emotions vying for precedence . “Look here.” His voice veered to pleading. “That’s my work computer, all right? You can’t just use that to… Not without a warrant. The Director of information will have me by the balls.”

“Hardly likely,” flouted Sherlock at his haughtiest.

“Oh, please,” he elaborated when the capillaries in Gregson’s cheeks were filled to bursting for the umpteenth time that day, “not for the reasons conjured by your primitive little mind. No, compared to your so-called Director of information John here is a computing genius who could take Alan Turing himself down a few pegs. The Titanic was better equipped to pull through a collision with an iceberg than your so-called intranet is against the hacking attempts of a determined toddler who’s just been given his first I-Pad.”

“Never mind.” Heroically risking life and limb, John jumped between the warring parties and raised his hands. “That’s enough,” he admonished Sherlock in tones that brooked no argument. “And you too,” he accosted the flabbergasted Gregson next. “Remember, we’ve got a killer to catch. Possibly a pair of them if Sherlock is right.”

“Of course I’m right,” sniffed Sherlock. “I’m always right.” 

“Shut up!” John barked.

“There’s no need to shout,” Sherlock countered with the hurt aspect of the most reasonable man on the planet. 

“Listen, Sherlock,” John tore into his friend. “Could you for once in your life try stop pissing off every single person in a five mile radius and Shut The _fucking_ Hell UP!” 

He accompanied his command with a glower that, in the best over-the-top Hollywood tradition, would send a swarming host of cruel and bloodthirsty aliens from some as yet undiscovered galaxy, hell bent on dealing death and destruction to terrified humanity, scampering for their outer space high-tech invasion fleet. The vermin were about to escape unscathed when the unassuming but fearless, jumper-clad hero saved the day by ambushing and eliminating the aliens in in an eardrum-shredding finale that would leave the audience craving the sequel. All the scenario lacked was a pretty lady who’d swoon into the leading man’s arms over the smoking corpse of the aliens’ commander. And no, in spite of the virulent gossip making the rounds of NYS's offices and Mrs Hudson’s most fervent hopes of show boating her own pair of married ones Sherlock didn’t fit that particular bill. Even though he was currently gazing at John with the awestruck expression he generally reserved for feats of his own genius.

“Jeez’, John,” Greg commented, impressed. “Do you do lessons? If you did, half of Greater London would be clamouring at your doorstep. You could charge them, you know, live high off the hog in no time.”

“Very funny, Gavin,” Sherlock made himself heard, but his bearing had lost its usual brazenness so John let it go. 

“What’s the plan?” John changed the subject back to the why and wherefore of their get-together inside the tight confines of Gregson’s office. 

Sherlock’s smile surpassed even the most supercilious, stuck-up smirk John had ever seen on his hoity-toity elder brother’s face for sheer superior smugness.

“It’s brilliant,” he said.

***

For all its brilliance Sherlock’s plan sported at least one serious flaw and John was presently stuck slap-bang in its centre. The clump of nettles Sherlock had selected for an observation post had wriggled its way into John’s clothes to stroke his skin with a fiery passion John had seldom encountered before. It took every last shred of willpower and military training not to jump up and break into a mad warrior dance that would have put John Travolta to shame.

To make matters worse the nettles’ torment, which was driving John nearly insane, had no apparent effect on Sherlock. The git had probably unburied some ancient tantric yoga technique from his mind palace that helped him pretend he wasn’t sprawling on their itchy hiding place but the familiar bumps and dips of their old sofa back at 221B Baker Street. Or perhaps, thanks to on and off stints of ingestion of every sort of upper and downer nature’s generosity and human ingenuity had produced his system was permanently insentient to tactile stimulation.

John sighed and, with the silence of an adder slithering across the desert floor, shifted in search of a spot with less antagonistic leaves.

“John,” Sherlock hissed instantly.

John sighed again, wishing half-heartedly he’d left Sherlock to his own devices and stayed with Greg and Gregson who were probably clinking their glasses for their first swig of _The Fox & Hounds_ mouth-wateringly delicious ale right this moment. Not that he’d sling his hook from Sherlock’s side but every now and then the notion looked tempting. 

An hour earlier the DI’s had dropped them off at a distance of two miles from the farm and gone on to set up base at the Uffington watering hole. Sherlock had dismissed their offers of assistance, stating that John and he best worked alone. After a brief verbal tussle Greg had yielded but not until he’d extracted Sherlock’s promise not to do anything stupid and call for intervention the minute the situation required police assistance. The DI must stock lashings of faith in humanity in general and his consulting detective in particular to believe Sherlock would heed his pledge. Or maybe he was just hoping for the best.

Night’s canopy had descended completely during their walk to shield them from wary eyes during their reconnoitring of the farmyard. The farm’s windbreak served as an excellent cover but unfortunately it didn’t run around the whole property, hence their current off-putting position.

One particularly belligerent stalk embarked on an incursion in the vicinity of John’s belly button.

“Christ,” he muttered, escorting the expletive with a dead-glare in Sherlock’s direction, promising a close encounter with John’s fist if he so much as dared to comment. Quite apart from the fact their vanguard spot left much to be desired the necessity for being quieter than the family of field mice roaring happily somewhere in the vicinity of his left ear struck John as unnecessary. The farmyard lay slumbering silent and serene beneath the starry sky, the contours of its outbuildings blending in with the surrounding black hills. For the half an hour they’d been surveying the empty wasteland not so much as a stalk of grass had moved. Not a beam of light peeked from behind the farmhouse’s drawn curtains, the owners presumably carousing in the Land of Nod after a long day whiled away decorating cupcakes with a crazed band of chattering and giggling pink-apparelled eight-year-old girls. John heartily felt for them. Nothing in the peaceful scene indicated the Apocalypse was about to erupt.

“Ssshh.” Sherlock held his forefinger to his lips. Now John heard it too. The low rumble of a heavy vehicle, still far off but steadily approaching. He looked over his shoulder. Their position gave them a clear view of the only road that led to the farm but his eyes didn’t discern the yellow band of the vehicle’s headlights he expected to see. Beside him, Sherlock nodded, eyes glinting with wicked glee.

“And there,” he whispered. 

Indeed a lamp sprang to life on the house’s first floor, soon followed by a trickle on the lower floor until the farmhouse was a blaze of radiance. John’s light-deprived eyes were still adjusting to the sudden influx when the front door was thrown open wide. Against the yellow backdrop stood a man’s silhouette. After peering left and right he walked down the yard, guiding himself along with the aid of his torch and took up position at the head of the driveway.

A few minutes later a medium-sized van trundled up the driveway. With its black paint and its headlights and tail lights switched off it was nearly invisible in the darkness. It halted close to the large outbuilding nearest to John and Sherlock’s surveillance post. Maybe Sherlock hadn’t chosen so badly after all for when the driver jumped out of the van and the men greeted each other they could hear every syllable of the ensuing conversation. 

“See anything?”

“Nah. Some out of the ark geezer walking his dog near Woolstone and a pair of pissed fuck wits in Ashbury.”

“Hhmm. Do you reckon we should ride again? Scare the living daylights out of those geeks once and for all?”

“Not now, no. There’s always dipsticks don’t have the frigging brains to get the hang of what’s good for them. Chop off their flaming nut and they still don’t get it.”

“Yeah. Best lie low for a patch. Every booking for miles around has been cancelled so we’ve got rid of those bleeding hikers and day trippers.”

“Day trippers. Hah.”

“Any headache dumping the load?”

“Nah, that old mine works like a charm. We’ll be living the life of Riley long before we’ve filled the shaft.”

“Belting. Well, come on in. Grub’s all set.”

“Ta, after lugging those fucking vats I could eat a scabby horse.”

Together the men went into the house and the front door fell to behind them with a loud thud.

“Well,” Sherlock said, his baritone warm with smug relish. “That was most illuminating. Almost as good as a confession.”

“Yeah, brilliant. Except for the total lack of evidence of whatever they’re up to. You heard them, whatever it was they gave it the bum’s rush so Gregson won’t find a thing when he alights with a search warrant.”

“John.” Sherlock sounded sincerely disappointed in John’s cognitive abilities. “Their lingo, though offensive, was plain as day.”

“Fine.” Briefly, John debated the benefits of grabbing Sherlock by the uppity neck and scrubbing his swaggering gob through the nettles. Huge as those rewards towered in John’s mind, luckily for Sherlock common sense prevailed and he settled for gritting his teeth and heaving yet another deep sigh instead. “Fine, Sherlock. It may be plain to you but it sure as hell isn’t to me. Could you come off your high horse and explain. You know, for those whose last name isn’t _bloody_ Holmes.”

“Just Holmes, John. Come on, I’ll show you.” Sherlock leapt into a crouch and slipped into the night as stealthily as a tiger patrolling its territory before John had a chance to stall him. 

“Come on, John,” his whisper was rapidly disappearing. 

Swearing under his breath John blundered to his feet and hurried after Sherlock. Free from the nettles’ scourging stalks at last the marks they’d planted all over his skin began itching worse than ever. Half round the twist with agony John nearly bumped into Sherlock who’d ground to a halt behind one of the numerous buildings that littered the edge of the farmyard. 

“Listen,” Sherlock said. Shielded from the sparse moonlight as they were in the building’s shelter John could still see the grin on the sleuth’s face through the glee that laced the word.

John listened. After a while he heard a thump, the reverberation of a kick against wood and a loud snort. They’d ended up behind the stables.

“So?” John turned towards Sherlock. “Surely, you didn’t buy that senile plank’s ravings. Do you really expect we’ll find the four horses of the Apocalypse in there?” 

Rather than meeting the challenge Sherlock quirked one eyebrow so eloquently a blind man would have noticed. “Let’s have a look,” he suggested and quick as lightning he was off again, darting around the structure on feet as nimble as a fairy’s in some ancient dark tale, leaving John the choice to follow or fend for himself.

“Christ, you nutter,” John cursed but scrambled after Sherlock nevertheless, steering his way along the structure’s walls with his left hand. Upon encountering a gap his fingers groped until he grasped this was the entrance. He sneaked inside and pulled the door to behind him. Soft snorts greeted him.

“Sherlock,” he called out as loudly as he dared.

“Over here, John,” Sherlock replied, his voice coming from somewhere down the stables. 

“Easy boy, easy,” John heard him say next in an uncommonly gentle tone. “Yes, you like that, don’t you?”

As John walked down the passage he was surrounded by the warmth of bodies packed close together. The aroma of horses was almost overwhelming but it was a clean and healthy smell, warm and comforting. Clearly, these stables were mucked out regularly and the animals well taken care off. Which really didn’t coincide with one’s general ideas about ruthless criminals.

At the end of the stables Sherlock was standing in one of the boxes, patting a horse on the neck and letting it nibble something from his palm.

“Sugar,” he explained. “Lifted it from Gregson’s desk. He could do with some dieting advice from Mycroft anyway.”

“Are you saying Mycroft’s diet is working?” John asked disbelievingly.

“Oh, he’s still fat but he was gross before. Don’t snitch on me, will you?” Sherlock answered. “But first I want you to meet the red horse. Yes, you’re a lovely horse. Just wait until John sees you,” he added. John surmised the last two sentences were addressed to the horse rather than his person.

The beam of Sherlock’s small Maglite lit up the horse’s left rear leg to reveal its glossy chestnut coat.

“He’s in his prime,” Sherlock said. “Beautiful animal. But they all are. Look.” He ambled out of the box and, after carefully shutting the door behind him, proceeded towards John, shifting the torch’s beam to illuminate the white horse, the black horse and the pale horse – a magnificent grey beast – successively. From what John could glimpse these four horses were the crowning glory of an assortment of so-so nags and bog standard ponies, several of which bared their teeth at him in passing. Not that John was very knowledgeable about horses. The closest he’d ever come to them was when he was thirteen and kissing Bonny Prince – who was pony mad – on her bed beneath a wall that was papered from top to bottom with pony posters and photographs ripped from girls magazines.

“And to top it all off…” Sherlock’s tone had just redefined the meaning of the adjective ‘patronising’ and imbued it with formerly unimagined significance, “…behold the murder weapon.” He angled the beam upwards and let it glance off a scythe that hung from a hook next to the door. The curved, wickedly sharp steel glittered forebodingly. 

“Still, this doesn’t prove anything,” continued Sherlock in a sobered up voice. “They keep a very clean stable. That scythe will have been scrubbed to within an inch of its life. Forensics won’t find as much as a fingerprint on it. Suspicious in itself but mere conjecture won’t put anyone behind bars. For that we need motive. And I know just where to find it.”

Before John could blink Sherlock had dashed past him out of the stables and across the yard.

“Jesus, you daft twit, could you stop doing that?” John grumbled, chasing after his long-legged flatmate as fast as his far shorter legs allowed him. Sadly, he wasn’t fast enough. Something heavy whacked his lower back and he nose-dived straight into the mud. The earth’s black surface surging upwards to meet his face was the last thing he remembered before darkness engulfed him completely.

***

“…coming round. There the sucker is. Wakey, wakey, dick wit.”

Groggily, John tried to pretend he was still unconscious but he must have twitched an eyelid or done something else to give the game away for the voice laughed cruelly.

“No use shamming. Attaboy, show your Uncle Keith those peepers.” 

And there was the other major flaw in Sherlock’s brilliant scheme. Somehow it never was the consulting detective but always his flatmate who ended up bound to a chair with a crackpot psychopath looming over him threatening to rip out his nails, crunch his bollocks, slit his throat or subject John’s physique to some equally dreary but highly unpleasant form of torture.

Eyes still firmly shut John weighed his options. His ankles were tied firmly to the chair’s legs with duct tape, a substance he loathed for its tendency to cling to and wrench any stray hairs. Indeed, the thugs had neglected to pull down the hems of his trousers over his socks before winding the tape and he could feel it tugging at the sparse hairs covering his luckless ankles, which had only just recovered from the arrant vegetation attack. What John had done to deserve this, apart from serving his Queen and country, saving the lives of numerous people at the various hospitals where he’d worked, helping old ladies cross the street and collecting his flatmate’s suits and shirts from the dry-cleaner’s, he’d probably never find out. 

The state of his hands, joined as tightly together as a bunch of asparagus in Borough market, and tethered to the back of the chair with what felt like approximately a mile of duct tape left John in no doubt Uncle Keith & Co knew their – unsavoury – business. If Sherlock was right – and, given John’s present position it looked like he probably was – these heavies had also cold-bloodedly sent five people to meet their maker before their time was up. Perhaps it was best to confront them with his eyes wide open. Besides, he wanted to know if they’d got hold of Sherlock as well.

To his immense relief the room he was sitting in contained but three people: himself, Uncle Keith, whose overall appearance didn’t improve upon closer acquaintance, and a seedy individual with a ferrety face who was snarling insults into a mobile.

“I clocked another geezer, you bitch. He’s out there I tell you. ’Course he’s not hanging around. He’s doing a runner. Get on that nag and go after him.” He disconnected the call. “Scatty cow,” he muttered to himself.

“No rush.” Uncle Keith chuckled; a gruesome noise Count Dracula would have been hard pushed at besting. “Candy’s a jim-dandy cunt but an ace with that sickle. That gormless fucker is as dead as a doornail.”

“Yeah, but what was he snooping around for?” ferret face spun round and invaded John’s personal space at distressing speed. “Who are you?” he snarled, his close proximity to John’s nose unveiling he suffered from a severe case of halitosis.

“You don’t really expect me to answer that question, do you?” John replied. Hearing their side of the phone conference had got his hopes up considerably. Sherlock was alive and free and if anyone in the Commonwealth could outrun and outwit a fiendish scythe-wielding murderess it was the great Sherlock Holmes himself. Or so John briefed himself for the alternative was unthinkable. 

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Uncle Keith grinned and dug the steel-reinforced heel of his boot deep into John’s toes, which was a decidedly unpleasant experience. 

John shouted, giving it all he’d got. Hopefully the agonised yells together with John’s unassertive countenance hoodwinked Uncle Keith into the belief he wasn’t dealing with a battle-hardened soldier but a faint-hearted wimp. If he managed to ride out the storm he would buy Sherlock enough time to come swooping down with the cavalry hot on his heels. The alternative John simply didn’t bear contemplating.

After a good forty-five seconds John let the screams dwindle to a whimper he kept up for another half a minute. By then Uncle Keith was displaying signs of mounting impatience so John shut up.

“Well,” Uncle Keith threatened.

“Well, sorry and all that but I won’t,” John said. This time Uncle Keith ground the heel as well.

John quickly tired of the game, which had never been one of his favourites to begin with. Worse, Uncle Keith’s limits of restraint turned out less formidable than John had wished for and the nail-pulling stage impended as an option all too soon to John’s liking. 

“Wait!” Ferret-face raised his hand. He must have had uncommonly sharp hearing to have discerned anything over the din John had been producing.

“What?” Uncle Keith switched his attention from John’s kneecaps to his companion. “What are…”

Presumably he was about to ask what his criminal associate was about. John never found out and frankly, he didn’t care a hoot. All he cared about was the distressed countenance of his friend that bobbed white as a ghost above the surge of the Firearms Response Team that fell into the room.

***

“I’m sorry, John. I’m really sorry.”

“Can I have that in writing?”

***

Perhaps that had been too much to ask for, John contemplated as Greg drove them all back from Wantage Community Hospital to their hotel. Sherlock had gone as far as to give his permission for John to refer to the apology in his blog.

“Your writing style is as clear as mud so no one will understand anyway,” he’d sniffed. “Mine, on the other hand, is concise and to the point. It won’t do to have people believe I’m fallible.”

“They’ll believe you’re human, Sherlock, just like the rest of us,” John had replied but decided to let it go, concentrating on getting the knack of his nice, new crutch instead. Greg had chuckled as John came hobbling out of A&E and remarked on the irony of Sherlock’s actions first freeing John from his crutch and then shackling him to one again.

“Uncle Keith, you mean,” John corrected.

“Pardon, yes, Uncle Keith,” Greg admitted. The tired lines round his eyes softened. “Well done, you two,” he said.

And well, given the fact that Sherlock barely escaped from a mad dance with the scythe-swinging Candy by climbing into a tree, after discovering the UK’s biggest MDMA factory to date, John considered the compliment pretty befitting.

***

When John doddered into the breakfast room the following morning he found a morose Greg staring gloomily at his mobile.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Something wrong with the evidence?”

“Huh, what? No. It’s Sherlock, isn’t it? That evidence is as good as gold. They’ve already confessed, all three of them. Apparently, one of them has a great-uncle who knows all about the White horse and he provided them with the idea. They wanted to scare people off the roads at night so no one would notice them as they transported the waste and the pills. The upsurge in tourists when the season started took them by surprise. All those people driving and walking about when they depended on some peace and quiet. Jesus Christ.”

“I see.” John sipped his tea. Sherlock had already explained this to John while he sat waiting beside John’s bed in A&E. He’d also shown John the handful of pills he’d pilfered.

“I’m convinced they’re the same I tested back in London,” he’d crowed. “These are amazing chemists, John. The product is so pure most people’s system can’t handle it.”

“Thank God it’s off the market then,” had been John’s heartfelt reply. “Perhaps Greg can tot up those deaths to their record to ensure they’ll be locked away for the rest of their lives.” 

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, John. Even I will be hard put establishing the link in such a way it will hold in court.” With that, Sherlock’s hand had curled into a tight fist around the pills, strengthening John in the conviction his friend would explore every available avenue to connect the victims in Molly’s freezers to Uffington’s ecstasy plant.

“So, if not that, is it… Karen?” guessed John, buttering a slice of crispy warm toast. 

Greg’s face darkened even further. “Yeah. She’s just texted she’s going to file the papers for divorce.”

“Jesus, Greg.” The message itself didn’t surprise John, not after ages of watching the Lestrade marriage teeter on the rim of destruction but the means of communication hit him as particularly uncouth. Greg didn’t deserve this. He was too good a police officer, too decent a human being to be treated with such cruel nonchalance.

“Yeah. It’s…” Greg shook his head. “She’s right, you know. I’m a terrible husband. But I love her, dammit. I do.” He shoved back his chair and made for the door to the lobby, almost running across Sherlock who came padding in, hands deep in the Belstaff’s pockets and deep lines crossing his brow.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked John. “Last time I asked him for a breather he avowed he’d quit.”

“It’s Karen,” John answered, clarifying at Sherlock’s blank look of incomprehension, “his wife.”

“Oh, what about her?” The befuddled air remained firmly stuck to the sleuth’s features.

“She’s filing for a divorce,” explained John.

“Ah,” Sherlock breathed. “I see.” The puzzlement was instantly wiped from his face in exchange for raffish exultation. “Good. Excellent news. I’m glad to hear it. At last Garrett has managed to disentangle himself from that woman’s clutches. That gives him a chance to turn himself into a better than average policeman. He’s the best of the lot. Under my careful guidance he might yet surprise us one day.”

“Yes, well,” John concurred. “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.”

***

“Don’t bother driving us home, Greg,” John said to Greg as they joined the M25. “Just drop us off at your place and we’ll grab a cab there.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock decreed from the back seat. “You’re a temporary invalid, John. Climbing into and out of cars is too hard on your knee. “Garner only lives the other side of London so a detour won’t bother him in the least.”

“Sherlock,” John began warningly but Greg waved him off.

“Never mind. I’m in no hurry to return home anyway.”

Greg’s dispirited declaration was met by deafening silence from the back of the vehicle.

The car was still sliding to a halt in front of 221B Baker Street when Mrs Hudson opened the front door and bustled onto the pavement. 

“Oh, there you are, dears,” she tittered, scurrying to welcome them. “My brave boys, you’re all over the news. I’m so proud of you. And you too, Detective Inspector, or can I say Greg? Your name is Greg, isn’t it? I still haven’t got the hang of this texting but never mind, dear. You must come in, I’ve just baked my walnut date cake, especially for you. And strawberry tartlets for you, Sherlock love, because you secretly crave them and you’re bound to be hungry after dashing all across Berkshire. But no, John, poor thing, you must rest your knee. Let Sherlock carry those bags. Come on in, Greg, come in. I’ve just put the kettle on.”

Grabbing the powerless DI by the arm she swept him off his feet and into the hallway. With some difficulty John pivoted on his heel to smile at Sherlock, who was following Mrs Hudson’s instructions regarding their luggage like an obedient eager beaver, determined to remain unnoticed in the background.

“Greg?” he prodded.

Sherlock kept a straight face. “Come on, John. I’m the world’s only consulting detective and you sincerely believe I wouldn’t remember the name of my second-best friend?”

“Well, yes, I did actually,” John confessed.

Sherlock eyed him, a smile lifting the corners of his lips and crinkling the skin around his eyes.

“Don’t put it in your blog, all right,” he said, indicating the baggage with a tip of his chin.

“No,” replied John. “I won’t.”


End file.
